Dear Parents/Carers,

On Tuesday 8th February we will be joining schools and youth organisations across the UK in celebrating Safer Internet Day 2022. Safer Internet Day is a global campaign to promote the safe and responsible use of technology, which calls on young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers and more, to join together in helping to create a better internet.

Using the internet safely and positively is a key message that we promote in Rushden Academy, and celebrating Safer Internet Day is a great opportunity for us to re-emphasise the online safety messages we deliver throughout the year. Students will be engaging in a variety of activities during tutor times.

We would be delighted if you could join us in celebrating the day by continuing the conversation at home. To help you with this, you may be interested in downloading the free Safer Internet Day  Resources for Parents and Carers which is available at: saferinternet.org.uk/sid-parents.

There are top tips, quizzes, and films which you can use at home with your child. Some other resources which you may find helpful in supporting your child online are:

• Tips, advice and guides for parents and carers from the UK Safer Internet Centre(saferinternet.org.uk/parents)
• Advice for parents and carers from Childnet (childnet.com/parents-and-carers)
• Reviews and information about games, apps, TV shows and websites from Common Sense Media (commonsense.org)
• Help on using parental controls and privacy settings from Internet Matters(internetmatters.org./controls)
• Information and reporting of online grooming or sexual abuse from CEOP (ceop.police.uk)

Online safety is an important issue which as a school we’re committed to teaching our pupils about.

If you have any concerns or questions about keeping your child safe online, please do get in touch  with your child’s form tutor or myself, Mrs Paula Smith - Designated Safeguarding Lead.

Kind regards,

Mrs Paula Smith

Assistant Principal /DSL /Senco

Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, London 28/01/2022

Last week, the Year 11 Geography fieldtrip to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (Stratford, London) yet again proved to be a tremendous success! Due to the pandemic, GCSE students have so far been unable to complete fieldwork and so this was a great moment for staff and students to get out of the classroom and local surroundings! Student embarked upon an investigation, aiming to tackle curriculum areas such as urbanisation and sustainable development and this is to be assessed as part of their first GCSE examination. 

As part of the fieldtrip, students got to see the different features within the Olympic site (such as the Lee Valley VeloPark) as well as completing surveys in 4 key areas within this area of Stratford. We also visited the renowned Westfield shopping centre and assessed the impact that this has had on Stratford and the surrounding areas of East London.

Throughout the day all of students behaved exceptionally and represented the school in a mature manner, showing an awareness of the importance of their work as well as the sensitivity of their surroundings. Another very successful fieldtrip after a long wait! A massive thank you to all students and staff that attended.